The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress

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Highlights

Surprisingly our results show that interrupted work is performed faster. We offer an interpretation. When people are constantly interrupted, they develop a mode of working faster (and writing less) to compensate for the time they know they will lose by being interrupted. Yet working faster with interruptions has its cost: people in the interrupted conditions experienced a higher workload, more stress, higher frustration, more time pressure, and effort. So interrupted work may be done faster, but at a price. ⤴️ ^43331532

In a field study of managers, Hudson et al. [8] reported that interruptions might be beneficial. Other lab and diary study results have described them as detrimental [1, 3]. ⤴️ ^0390c518

After only 20 minutes of interrupted performance people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure. ⤴️ ^c4a48f05